Dresdner Christstollen

Name: Dresdner Christstollen
Total time: 345 h
Yield: Makes one large loaf
Cuisine: The Rhine and the German Middle
Ingredients: 600g strong white flour, the weight everything is measured against; 300g butter, at least half the flour's weight; 460g sultanas, at least 65 per cent of the flour's weight, soaked in rum overnight; 40g rum, to soak the sultanas; 120g candied orange and citron peel, at least a fifth; 110g sweet almonds; with the bitter almonds below, at least 15 per cent of the flour; 12g bitter almonds; 70g fresh yeast; 170g milk; 95g sugar; 7g salt; a pinch cardamom; a pinch mace; 100g melted butter, to finish; 50g crystal sugar, to finish; 50g icing sugar, to finish

Dresden

Dresdner Christstollen, a heavy butter and sultana loaf with candied peel and almonds under thick icing sugar: a long oval loaf with its folded ridge, buried in thick white icing sugar, two slices cut to show a dense crumb packed with dark sultanas.

Illustration

Time: 345 hours

Researched: Researched from 1 source in the brief

The Christmas loaf under the seal, whose minima are set against the flour weight: at least 50 per cent butter, 65 per cent sultanas, 20 per cent candied peel and 15 per cent almonds, and no margarine. The loaf below is the Saxony tourism board's four pound dough, and every minimum is met.

by Dresden

The Stollen's dates do not agree, and the disagreement is the finding. Saxon sources give a Striezel at the Saxon court in 1427, a first Striezelmarkt in 1434, a first documented Stollen in 1474, and the Butterbrief of 1491, in which Pope Innocent VIII, petitioned by the Elector Ernst and his brother Albrecht, allowed butter in Lenten baking against a fine that went in part to building Freiberg Cathedral. Naumburg, in Saxony-Anhalt, claims a bishop's bread gift of 1329, which would predate every Dresden date by a century and which this research did not retrieve. The document itself was not seen by us in any of these cases. What is firm is modern: Dresdner Christstollen has been a protected trademark since 1996 and a European protected name since 2010, with a Schutzverband that tests every maker's loaf and awards its seal to those scoring sixteen points of twenty. Its minima, as the press summarises the bylaws, are per weight of flour: at least 50 per cent butter or butterfat, 65 per cent sultanas, 20 per cent candied orange and citron peel and 15 per cent almonds, with margarine, artificial preservatives and artificial flavours forbidden. The bylaws themselves were not read, and the numbers should be checked against them.

Read the history

As tradition built it

Makes one large loaf. Rum soak overnight; about 2 hours to rise; about 1 hour to bake; 1 to 2 weeks at least to rest.

Ingredients

600g strong white flour, the weight everything is measured against
300g butter, at least half the flour's weight
460g sultanas, at least 65 per cent of the flour's weight, soaked in rum overnight
40g rum, to soak the sultanas
120g candied orange and citron peel, at least a fifth
110g sweet almonds; with the bitter almonds below, at least 15 per cent of the flour
12g bitter almonds
70g fresh yeast
170g milk
95g sugar
7g salt
a pinch cardamom
a pinch mace
100g melted butter, to finish
50g crystal sugar, to finish
50g icing sugar, to finish

Method

Soak the sultanas in rum the day before.
Make a sponge of yeast, milk, a little sugar and flour and let it work about 20 minutes.
Work in the rest of the flour, the butter, the sugar, salt and the cardamom and mace to a dough, and let it rise about 90 minutes.
Work the drained fruit, the peel and the almonds in last, briefly, so the dough is not torn.
Shape the loaf with the folded ridge along its length, and bake at 180 degrees for about 1 hour.
Brush it with the melted butter while it is hot, coat it with the crystal sugar, and dust it thick with icing sugar when cold.
Wrap it and rest it one to two weeks at least, three to four for the full flavour.

What a modern chef changes

The ratios as a formula, the rest as a schedule

Rung 6

Method

Treat the seal's minima as baker's percentages and write the recipe from them: for 1 kilogram of flour, 500 grams of butter, 650 of sultanas, 200 of peel, 150 of almonds, and the rest to the baker. That is the Schutzverband's standard turned into a loaf.
Laminate a third of the butter in cold, in two folds, after the first rise; the loaf keeps its density and the crumb gets a shorter bite.
Bake with a probe to 94 degrees in the centre, which is done for a dough this heavy and the point an hour at 180 is aiming at.
Rest it in a cool room, 12 to 14 degrees, wrapped in paper and not plastic, for three weeks; the rest is the technique and the shop that sells it warm has skipped the recipe.

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